Following the reform, Ethiopia has been undertaking extensive telecom services modernization. As a part of the East African countries, it aims to realize digital inclusion and boosting the size of its digital economy, with the provision of reliable, high band-width and high-speed telecom services. Furthermore, Ethiotelecom is working aggressively to protect its market share plans.
Mobile financial service is among the alternative solutions that the universe is implementing in order to modernize telecom services. The service has become a significant part of African telecom operators’ businesses since Kenya’s Safaricom pioneered with M-Pesa in 2007, giving people an alternative to banks.
Cognizant to this fact, Ethiotelecom has recently inaugurated Tele-Birr mobile money service which is the unique for Ethiotelecom’s 127 years of service, and has been operational for nearly two years. The service is an innovative mobile money solution for Ethiotelecom customers that allow customers to make different financial transactions through an electronic account using their mobile phone.
The new service, Tele-Birr, will mark a shift for Ethiopia, where the banking system is seen as inefficient with 19 commercial banks serving a population of about 115 million.
On the launching ceremony, Firehiwot Tamiru, CEO of Ethiotelecom said that the service is mainly focused on the people living at the rural areas and under an economic pressure. “If you think about the need for all this celebration, ethiopitelecom deserves it for its achievements,” the CEO said.
Being thankful for the administrative and genuine support of the prime minister for the accomplishment of the service, she further mentioned that the service is of paramount importance to upgrading the ethiotelecom’s service beyond information provision.
She further elucidated that the company aims to attract 21 million users for the service in its first year of operation and rising to 33 million in five years, expecting about 40 to 50 percent of Ethiopia’s economic activity to be transacted on the “Tele-Birr” platform within a five years period.
As to her, ethiotelecom is also working with various service providers to create a conducive environment for the transactions, such as water and sewage, electric service, revenue authorities, supermarkets, gas stations, aid agencies, cafes, transport service providers and print media.
She also commended all the supporting public and private companies for their support for the completion of the project. Particularly she applauded Huawei for finishing the mobile money services solution project in five months, down from an initial projected completion period of two years.
Speaking at the launching ceremony, Prime Minister Ahmed (PhD) commended all relevant stakeholders that enabled the completion of the project in a short period of time.
With the launching of the “Tele-Birr”, customers of ethiotelecom can send, store and receive money by just using their telephone number, the Premier said. “Tele- Birr aims to extend mobile money service solutions to financially excluded sections of Ethiopian society,” he added.
Its launching comes as the government prepares to sell a 45 percent stake of ethiotelecom, part of a broader liberalization including the auctioning of two new full service telecoms licenses. Only ethiotelecom will be able to offer mobile financial services for now as foreign operators are currently banned by law from participating.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also underlined for telebirr that the government had foregone 500 million USD by denying bidders for the two licenses the right to roll out mobile financial services while mentioning his expectation that ethiotelecom will strive in a way to compensate this.
However, the mobile financial services would be opened up to competition after a year. Tele-Birr would help provide formal financial services to those who do not have access to bank accounts, the Prime Minister said.
Apart from the ethiotelecom stake sale, ending one of the world’s last closed telecoms markets, the government is looking more broadly to open up Ethiopia’s economy. Shares in sugar factories are also being sold and tentative steps towards opening up the financial sector have been taken.
Documents from ethiotelecom indicate that the service has different advantages for boosting economic growth. Firstly, people can easily send and receive money. Citizens can quickly send money to their families, friends or beloved ones anywhere whether they are users or non-users of telebirr service living in any corner of the country.
Tele-birr also allows people to send money to any other mobile phone user across the country. Both registered and nonregistered customers can transfer e-money to other users using account over the counter.
Apart from this, the service user can also buy Airtime. Airtime top-up feature of telebirr allows one to top-up for own or another persons’ service number through telebirr system using different channels such as Web, APP, USSD and SMS. Registered Airtime top-up made very easy and fast!
In addition, customers can pay their bills with telebirr. According to the document, anyone can conveniently pay Ethiotelecom bills or purchase tickets like Unity Park entrance using telebirr anywhere, anytime.
Tele-birr further enables people to easily settle their utility bills to organizations anytime, anywhere through their telebirr account. Typical applications include paying water, electricity, gas, insurance, and tuition fees.
Coupled with this, telebirr is also an ideal option for customers to withdraw e-money they already saved or that someone else sent them from his/her telebirr account. Telebirr enables customers to withdraw cash anywhere from their telebirr account at the nearby authorized telebirr agent or ethiotelecom shop.
If citizens are non users of telebirr, they will receive a voucher PIN via SMS and can take the PIN to a nearby telebirr agent or ethiotelecom’s shop to withdraw their money anytime, the document suggested.
Tele-birr also helps to reduce hassles in carrying cash for every transaction people can make. Customers can easily convert their cash into equivalent electronic money and spend their preferred amount for their bills, pay for purchases, send to others, etc. 24/7 directly from their cell phone.
The service also enables users to exchange cash with equivalent electronic money that results in an increase in the wallet account balance. Once the users make cash in, they can transfer e-money to other customers, pay utility bill, buy goods at merchant, and so on by using their e-money.
Parallel with this, the service can enable users to easily donate for different mega projects in the country including the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Additionally, customers can conveniently receive money via their mobile number sent from family, friends or beloved ones living abroad. Hence, telebirr enables customers to receive money from abroad as a remittance.
Both registered and nonregistered telebirr users can receive international remittance. Companies can also easily pay employees’ salaries and other bulk payments anytime and save their time and costs. Telebirr supports organizations to initiate and transfer money to customers/beneficiaries in bulk in real time. Organizations must be registered for bulk payment account and have sufficient balance in their trust fund account, the document asserted.
Approached by The Ethiopian Herald, Selamawit Abera, a sales woman at Addis Supermarket in the capital Addis Ababa said telebirr will help provide formal financial services to those who do not have access to bank accounts.
Besides, it will also enhance security by discouraging criminals who target cash fraud adding that people sometimes do not know if the note is counterfeit or not, she noted. “As telebirr is significant to pay for goods and Services, our clients can easily scan and pay for the goods they purchased and services they get from our supermarket,” she said.
Customers can also simply pay for services they get from hotels, gyms, taxis, beauty salons, groceries and other business and government agencies. Generally, telebirr is significant for boosting growth of the country through offering cashless transaction across the nation especially addressing the rural and poor society.
BY HIZKEL HAILU
The Ethiopian Herald May 20/2021
